Trent Lott

Trent Lott (9 October 1941-) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-MS 5) from 3 January 1973 to 3 January 1989 (succeeding William M. Colmer and preceding Larkin I. Smith) and a US Senator from Mississippi from 3 January 1989 to 18 December 2007 (succeeding John C. Stennis and preceding Roger Wicker).

Biography
Trent Lott was born in Grenada, Mississippi in 1941, and he grew up in Pascagoula and served as an administrative assistant to Congressman William M. Colmer before succeeding the retiring Colmer in the US House of Representatives in 1973. Formerly a segregationist Southern Democrat, Lott successfully ran as a Republican, winning 87% of the vote. He was only the second Republican elected to the US Congress from the state since Reconstruction, and he was easily re-elected six times, doing so without opposition in 1978. In 1980, he chaired Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign in Mississippi and served as House Minority Whip from 1981 to 1989, when he was elected to the US Senate after John C. Stennis retired. He was a noted social conservative, equating homosexuality with alcoholism, kleptomania, and sex addiction. On 5 December 2002, at the 100th birthday party of Senator Strom Thurmond, he commemorated Thurmond by saying that he was proud to have supported Thurmond' 1948 Dixiecrat presidential bid, saying that the USA wouldn't have had so many problems over the years if the country had voted for him; many interpreted this as support for Thurmond's segregationist and states' rights policies. Lott was forced to resign as Senate Republican Leader on 20 December as a result of the controversy, and he became less visible on the national scene. However, he supported bipartisan passenger rail initiatives and lifting restrictions on stem cell research, and he was re-elected with 65% of the vote in 2006. He resigned in 2007 in order to become a lobbyist, and he also became a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center.